Fire Alarms and Lost Buses

Hello again! It's been a little while since I posted last, but unfortunately I got a bit of a cold after the last adventures I had and had some catching up to do with my classes.

Nothing much has happened in the last week and a half or so because classes are pretty intense right now. We're halfway through the semester already, which is totally crazy, and now we have what is called "Reading Week". It's a week we get during week 6 of each of our semesters to catch up on work, but of course our professors take the advantage to give us even more to do :)

That said, I thought I'd elaborate on a few funny things that keep happening to me in my day-to-day life here in London.

First, Fire Alarms. I realize these aren't a "London" thing, but honestly, they go off ALL THE TIME. They're extra sensitive to the point that your toaster will set it off even if you put it on the lowest setting, keep the window open, and practically fan the toast SMELL out of the window while it's crisping.

I have now evacuated every King's College building I've ever set foot in. They go off multiple times a week at all times of the day or night and it's required to evacuate. In one week alone, I evacuated my apartment three times, the library once (at 11:30pm), and the building where my classes were twice. But I suppose I can't count the classroom evacuation twice because one of the times I was in the cafe and got stuck behind the fire doors. I'll still count it, though.

The other funny part, is that they have gone off so many times falsely in our building that we were told not to evacuate unless they last more than 30 seconds. So, sometimes you're in bed, the shower, etc and you hear it so you start to get up, get one shoe on, and it stops. The current record for this is 10 times in one night - at midnight.

Second point of interest, the city buses. They are by far the quickest way to get places in a lot of situations as well as your only option if you want to travel anywhere after 11pm as the tube stops running after 11. Fun fact - they're called Night Buses. Like in Harry Potter. I know, right?

They're not purple and it's Night vs Knight, but still. 

Now, coming from Chicago, I didn't have a high bar for the buses here in London. And honestly, they are awesome in comparison because they have letters that correspond to where you get on and off and the bus drivers are actually helpful. That said, there are a few quirky things about the buses that one must learn before deciding to ride.

1. Don't get on a Hydrogen bus - odds are, if you're going more than 6 blocks, it will probably break down. I know they're trying to be environmental and I totally love that, but they don't work! You can tell it's about to break down too because the bus makes an unexpected turn onto a side street. The bus driver then insists that it will be back up and running if he can just kick it back into gear. I'm not sure if that's a technical term, but it involves a lot of key turning and the bus making that "errr errr err" sound. After a while, the bus driver will give up and tell you where the next stop is.

2. The routes are crazy. As I've mentioned before, Citymapper is the best app in the world and can get you anywhere at anytime. So, picture this, you get on a bus heading towards your destination and you sit down so that you can see both the sign that displays what stop is next and you have your phone out with Citymapper open so that you can follow the blue dot on the red line to make sure you know where to get off.

Then, this happens: 

Your first sign of trouble, the display switches to an asterisk instead of the next stop. 

Then, you look down at Citymapper and see this: 

Confirmed, you've been rerouted. 

There is never any notice given for a reroute and for some reason, no one else on the bus ever looks concerned, upset, or bothered in the least. I've also learned to accept this and somehow, it always gets back on track at some point and I make it to my destination. I still have absolutely no idea why this happens though, and I have set it as a goal to figure out the mystery of the reroutes. 

These odd things about London are part of the charm, even though it doesn't feel like it when the fire alarm is going off at 1am because someone wanted a toasted PB&J. 

Cheers! 

Sailsbury & Stonehenge, among other things

I've officially been here for a month. That's totally crazy! A few of us were just talking about it over tea (yes, we've all decided that we're super British and discuss things over tea) and we can't believe how fast this is going.

This past week was fairly standard as far as classes, etc went. The reading has somehow continued to multiply and someday I'll get used to it. On Sunday, though, I finally did something outside of London! Through a friend, I signed up for an all day trip that took us first to Sailsbury and then on to Stonehenge. Here's the recap.

We met at a hotel near St. Pancreas around 9am to get on 4 coach buses and drive to Sailsbury. We got there at about noon and had 3 hours to have lunch and explore. Our first stop was a little British pub that served very British dishes so I finally had my first real meal out. After lunch, we walked a few blocks to the famous Sailsbury Cathedral. It was amazing! I've seen a few Cathedrals here in London as well as some in France, but this one was definitely one of my favorites. There isn't a tour or an audio tour, so you can just wander through at your own pace and look at whatever interests you. Here are a few snaps of the afternoon spent at the cathedral.

Bunny ears have apparently just come to Europe. 

After we finished touring the cathedral, we got to see the Magna Carta, but since photos were not allowed, you can just picture the old piece of cow hid with very squished Latin written on it. It's pretty awesome that they still have it and that it's totally readable after so so so long. Fun fact: there are still 3 clauses that are still in use in the UK today. 

At about 3pm we all went back to the buses and took the short ride to Stonehenge. You have to get a shuttle up to the actual stones from the very modern looking cafe that they drop you off at. There is a guided audio tour for Stonehenge, but honestly, it was more fun trying to get all 6 of us in photos along the perimeter of Stonehenge so we didn't really use the audio guides that much. We did, however, manage to take nearly 50 selfies that only cut out most of us about half the time. Success! 

It was pretty rainy by the time we got to Stonehenge, but it really set the stage. Here are a few photos! 

Sighted! 

 The far side - you can sort of see the circular ditches around it. 

 Oh man - it's looking pretty impressive now.

 I'm here! 

The selfie that took 1000 years - we sort of did it! 

Overall, it was a pretty great trip. Even though I lost a day of studying, it was worth it and I'm so glad I got to see some pretty famous things. 

Now, the weekly list of favorite things: 

- Sailsbury & Stonehenge 

- Single person portioned food at the grocery store 

- The classic London weather (I'm still enjoying it for now!) 

- The cobblestone streets that are just normal streets 

Cheers! 

Week 3 - Lizzing London

Grad school is hard. I mean, I know that's pretty obvious, but until you get into it you don't really think about it that much. I give props to anyone who does this while working / being a parent / doing anything else because of the sheer amount of reading and work that needs to be done!

Classes are going well so far and I'm enjoying the content, but honestly, they all sort of blend together a bit. I have all of my classes on Mondays and Tuesdays (That's 6 hours straight each day) so by Tuesday night (right now) my brain feels like it's seeping out my ears. Quite the image, right?

I had a meeting with my "tutor" today and I felt so much better about things after that meeting. At King's each student is assigned a personal tutor for the year. They are a professor who is teaching one of your classes during the year and is someone you can go to for advice, help, questions on material, and potentially as references after the program is complete. This is something that I think King's does really well - and I know it sounds like I'm sponsoring them now, but really, this is pretty awesome. It's basically someone to say "Yep, stuff is really hard and it's only going to get harder and there is a ton of reading, but honestly, if you didn't think it was hard we wouldn't be doing it right". Pretty relieving!

Aside from school, I have had more of a chance to enjoy being in London lately since I've gotten a better handle on my schedule and how to plan my days. Since I have somehow lucked out and gotten two days of classes, that means that I have five day weekends. European weeks? I wish.

Last Friday, I went on a night bus tour that was set up by the building I live in. Not much to say here aside from - wow, my city is amazingly beautiful.

Some of my coworkers from my office in Chicago were here last week and it was SO NICE to see familiar faces and just generally hang with people who already know me. I didn't have to be as on my game as with my friends from school. (We're still new and in the "please like me, I'm making good impressions" phase of our friendships). We went to the Borough Market, walked around Kensington Gardens, and went on our own little pub crawl in Queen's Park with some friends from the London office. It was awesome. And super London-y because it rained the whole time. For what it's worth - my raincoat is perfect.

Weekly list of my favorite things right now:

- Getting the front seat on the top level of the bus. See the Shard? I live right next to it. Ah!

- Indian food is literally amazing here. All of it. Anywhere. Even the frozen meals.
- CityMapper app. It is on the list again because I couldn't live without it.
- Having a "regular spot" at the library where I meet my friends.
- The fox in the courtyard now has a name. Foxy. Really original.
- Making a breakthrough in my flat. If you know me well, you'll already know this story.
- I'm rubbish (see see!) at taking care of plants. I think. Unless it's supposed to look like this:

Thing I learned to fear this week - flying daddy long legs. Yes, these are real. They are just like those spiders in the U.S. that have super small bodies and really long, thin legs and are totally creepy BUT THEY FLY HERE. I would have a photo of this, but in moment of sheer panic, you tend to forget all about capturing moments. They come in your window when you least expect it and the next thing you know you have a boot on each hand and you're jumping around your room yelling "I've aggravated it!!" Don't ask me how I know this.

Cheers!